array

Webster's Dictionary (1913)

Origin: OE. arai, arrai, OF. arrai, arrei, arroi, order, arrangement, dress, F. arroi; a (L. ad) + OF. rai, rei, roi, order, arrangement, fr. G. or Scand.; cf. Goth. raidjan, garaidjan, to arrange, MHG. gereiten, Icel. reiði rigging, harness; akin to E. ready. Cf. Ready, Greith, Curry.

1. Order; a regular and imposing arrangement; disposition in regular lines; hence, order of battle; as, drawn up in battle array.

Wedged together in the closest array.— Edward Gibbon

2. The whole body of persons thus placed in order; an orderly collection; hence, a body of soldiers.

A gallant array of nobles and cavaliers.— William Hickling Prescott

3. An imposing series of things.

Their long array of sapphire and of gold.— George Noel Gordon, Ld. Byron

4. Dress; garments disposed in order upon the person; rich or beautiful apparel. John Dryden

5. Law (a) A ranking or setting forth in order, by the proper officer, of a jury as impaneled in a cause. (b) The panel itself. (c) The whole body of jurors summoned to attend the court.

To challenge the array Law, to except to the whole panel. John Cowell Thomas Edlyne Tomlins Thomas Blount — Commission of array English history, a commission given by the prince to officers in every county, to muster and array the inhabitants, or see them in a condition for war. Blackstone, Sir William

Origin: OE. araien, arraien, fr. OE. arraier, arreier, arreer, arroier, fr. arrai. See Array, noun

1. To place or dispose in order, as troops for battle; to marshal.

By torch and trumpet fast arrayed, Each horseman drew his battle blade.— Thomas Campbell

These doubts will be arrayed before their minds.— Frederick William Farrar

2. To deck or dress; to adorn with dress; to cloth to envelop; — applied esp. to dress of a splendid kind.

Pharaoh... arrayed him in vestures of fine linen.— Gen. xli.….

In gelid caves with horrid gloom arrayed.— John Trumbull

3. Law To set in order, as a jury, for the trial of a cause; that is, to call them man by man. Blackstone, Sir William

To array a panel, to set forth in order the men that are impaneled. John Cowell Thomas Edlyne Tomlins

Synonyms: To draw up; arrange; dispose; set in order.

Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913), from GCIDE 0.54

Free On-line Dictionary of Computing

1.<programming> A collection of identically typed data items distinguished by their indices (or "subscripts"). The number of dimensions an array can have depends on the language but is usually unlimited.

An array is a kind of aggregate data type. A single ordinary variable (a "scalar") could be considered as a zero-dimensional array. A one-dimensional array is also known as a "vector".

A reference to an array element is written something like A[i,j,k] where A is the array name and i, j and k are the indices. The C language is peculiar in that each index is written in separate brackets, e.g. A[i][j][k]. This expresses the fact that, in C, an N-dimensional array is actually a vector, each of whose elements is an N-1 dimensional array.

Elements of an array are usually stored contiguously. Languages differ as to whether the leftmost or rightmost index varies most rapidly, i.e. whether each row is stored contiguously or each column (for a 2D array).

Arrays are appropriate for storing data which must be accessed in an unpredictable order, in contrast to lists which are best when accessed sequentially. Array indices are integers, usually natural numbers, whereas the elements of an associative array are identified by strings.

2.<architecture> A processor array, not to be confused with an array processor.

(2007-10-12)